Archive for 'Little Canyon'

Please let me tell you a story. The other day I was taking a walk in the hills east of my hometown of Sparks, Nevada. I love to search for rocks, ghost towns, and far-off lonely places in the deserts, hills and mountains of my home state. I took my dog on a hike one day searching for some petroglyphs I had seen years ago. When I found them, I looked around and asked myself, “Why would there be petroglyphs here? This is not exactly an ideal location as there are no springs or fields of grass.”

I decided to hike farther up the canyon to a place I’d never been before. There was no trail and it was rather difficult to hike. I came to the base of a cliff of lichen covered rocks and as I glanced farther up the canyon I saw a deer feeding on some grass. I froze in my tracks. Fortunately I was downwind otherwise, I would never have seen them. I then saw another deer, a four-point buck. And then yet another doe feeding nearby. I turned on my camera to take a picture and they twitched at the minor sound it made, but did not run. (The picture below is not one I took-explanation as to why, shortly to come).

Photo of Deer (not my picture though)

I crouched down and crossed the little canyon then climbed the ridge on the other side. I slowly raised my head above the top of the ridge looking down on the deer as I was now above them. I turned on my camera again hoping to get a better shot. I didn’t care this time if I spooked them because it would be fun to get them running on video. As I stepped up over the top of the ridge and kept looking at the deer through my camera, I tripped, dropped the camera, sprained my thumb and spooked the deer!

Seven of them bolted from their feeding area and ran up the hill in the opposite direction of me. I had only seen three, now there were seven! I fumbled around with my camera trying to turn it back on and get a beautiful shot, but only managed to get them when they were quite a distance away.

I had lost a really great opportunity. But if I had been a hunter I would’ve come home with a dandy four-point buck to mount on my wall. (Don’t worry, I have not even tried to hunt a deer in more than 30 years).

Apparently these deer (and their ancestors) had come down this canyon for hundreds of years to reach the year-round natural springs in the valley below for water and food. Native Americans had created places to hunt them and the petroglyphs were created during the long waiting periods of boredom waiting for their kill. If they didn’t hunt, they didn’t eat. All sorts of animals used the springs as a food source and it became a natural hunting ground. Antelope, deer, rabbits, coyote, chukar, quail, etc. were all hunted here and that’s the reason for the petroglyphs.

When I came home I uploaded all the video files and camera shots to my computer and deleted them off the SD cards. A few hours later I returned to my computer expecting to edit and upload the videos but my computer died. This was the third time in seven months that I’ve had a hard drive failure on this computer and am now requesting a replacement from Apple.

I have an automatic backup system but it was not connected that day so all I have to show for this experience is a swollen, sprained thumb!

Internet marketing is very similar to this experience, except with one very major difference. Most of us don’t have to hunt today to provide food for families or pay the bills. We either own and operate a business that produces a product or service, or work for someone that does. The labor that we have to do is to create a product and service to solve another persons problem. Marketing is the means by which other people find out about who you are and what you do and how you can help them.

Traditional forms of advertising have utilized a “broadcast” mentality that throws up messages everywhere we go to entice us to call them or visit their store to make a purchase. While some demographics have been utilized to make proper decisions regarding which television show to advertise on (for example) the results have still somewhat been crude and unrefined. For the most part, all traditional forms of advertising use some method to jolt you out of your trance and make you think about them for a moment.

Internet marketing is completely different. So is Social Media marketing. For the first time in all of history we have a medium where people go to search for a solution to their problems and we can track their results. They type in all kinds of things to help them feel better, look better, get rid of aphids on their roses, choosing the best paint, do research on which car to lease, try to decide on the best new camera to buy…the list is endless. They actually go online and type in keywords and phrases that they understand and the results that pop up are what the search engines have decided are the closest resembling answers for their search query.

In other words, they are hunting for an answer. It’s like hunting in reverse. Instead of a business going out and trying to target specific individuals, Internet marketing allows individuals to hunt for specific solutions provided by businesses. I don’t think anyone in our day would like to be called or referred to as “the hunted,” but that is in essence what’s going on. And I doubt the ones being found are objecting.

Your business, product and service are being hunted and searched for every single day by someone, somewhere on the Internet.

And that trend is continuing to grow in dramatic fashion. It is safe to say that the majority of people finding and choosing a business have gone through some sort of search engine to find them. The next big wave of search traffic will come from the mobile marketing platform and it promises to be the most dramatic shift in advertising to date.

But let’s focus on helping your business to be found on the Internet. Findability, is the most important aspect of any Internet marketing campaign. If they type in a search phrase, and your business does not show up, they will go to the person or business that does. You have to be “findable.”

Sadly, most businesses of today still do not understand this dramatic difference between Internet marketing and traditional forms of advertising. It is still so new to so many people. And one of the biggest reasons for that is that there just too many options available for business today. Internet marketing all by itself, is an enormous subject. It is far more than PPC were SEO (if you know what those terms mean). Which one should they do and how do they start?

Another problem I see is that many people try to use traditional forms of advertising (i.e: broadcasting to the world) on the Internet, and while it works to a degree its usually very expensive and only reserved for the largest of companies to obtain success in this manner (although this is not entirely true). And just as I tripped and fell and lost a good photo-op, every business I know is also missing out on successful sales because they aren’t using the Internet correctly (or at all) and customers are going to those who do.

If you’re having a hard time getting your business found on the Internet, please call me today at 775-722-4949 to schedule a time to analyze your online status and offer you a proposal about how to fix it. I have a Masters Degree in Internet Marketing and I know how to help you. But my company only has the ability to service so many customers, so it’s important that you act quickly because once we’ve reached the limit, we will have to send you somewhere else. I don’t want to do that, but there’s only so much any business can do. So call me today or fill out the form to the right and I will get back with you as soon as I can.

We can make it possible for your business to be found online by those who are hunting for your products and services to solve their problem. Call today at 775-722-4949!